Alan N. Shapiro, Technologist and Futurist

Blog and text archive about media theory, science fiction theory, future design, social choreography, Computer Science 2.0, new media art, robots and androids, Star Trek, The Prisoner, Jean Baudrillard, Albert Camus, Michel Foucault, and Marshall McLuhan

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I am physically in Las Vegas, Nevada, but I am really in Venice, Italy

March 31st, 2011 in Category: Architecture, Quantum Culture

The reality of what Las Vegas architecture has achieved exceeds the intentions of the casino hotel owners. Venice is no longer restricted to its physical location in the region of Veneto in northern Italy.
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Of Art, Biotech and the Body in the World, by Claudio Cravero

March 24th, 2011 in Category: Arts & Genomics, Rethinking Science

Research over the last fifty years, including work in biotechnologies and in genetics, now enables us to intervene in the development and growth of life forms. It is a reference point around which artists develop their research, enabling creators to make biotechnologies their artistic medium.
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Whiskey Pete’s Casino at the California/Nevada Border

March 24th, 2011 in Category: Casino Gambling, Jean Baudrillard

From Dublin, Ireland I traveled on to New York City, then to southern California. The Baudrillard-America trip had begun. Moments after entering Nevada by car, we encountered Whiskey Pete's casino. Here an important Baudrillard conference had taken place in 1996.
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The Identity and Anxiety of Colonial Dublin in Joyce’s Dubliners, by James Shapiro

March 20th, 2011 in Category: Irish Literature

Anxiety and self-consciousness are particularly modern maladies, intensified by mechanized technology.